Tag Archives: Family

He vowed to love her. For better or worse. For rich or poor. To love her to the best of his ability for not only the rest of her life, but for the remainder of his as well. He promised to cherish her. But the reality, he is a promise broken.

One of the only ways I can explain what is inside of me is to say that it is an abyss. A swirling mass of emotions that sometimes rages. Sometimes calms. Sometimes swirls along at the bottom of my consciousness. And then soars to the very top of me. Covering every inch. Sometimes I stare down into the abyss. Standing at the very edge with my tiptoes on the ledge. And I look down into the emptiness and nothingness that is at the core of me. Sometimes it takes everything I have to not just jump in and finally allow the darkness to take me. Because it beckons me. Calls my name. Now the little girl that I used to chase around the house to hear her laughter. The little girl that I have shared every secret with, every smile, every tear, every hope and dream with, is staring into that same abyss within herself. And I do not know if I can stop her from creeping to the edge.
I don’t think she even truly understands what is happening. This is a new feeling for her. I know the abyss well. And while she has not had an easy life by a long shot, she has never faced the strength of that pull into darkness. To just succumb to the emptiness. She does not know what awaits at the bottom. I made my own promise to her long ago. I promised to always protect her. But now, I do not know if I can keep that promise. It is out of my hands. And I do not want to become yet another promise broken.

Last night I went over to spend time with my sister and niece and nephew. It was supposed to be an escape for both of us. An escape for me from the health issues that I have been struggling with lately. And a chance for her to get some help with the kids so she could get a couple moments to breathe. It turned into a nightmare.

My sister and her mom got into a screaming match. They are both wrought with emotion and strung as tight as can be. My aunt (that’s what I call my sister’s mom) is scared out of her mind that my sister will return to my brother in law. She is scared that my sister is breaking down into nothing, and that there is nothing we can do. My sister, on the other hand, is shattered. On the brink of a complete nervous breakdown. Unaware of the true extent of her brokenness. And so both of them just exploded against each other. Taking all of those other emotions out on each other. My sister was drunk and continued to drink. My aunt left the house for hours. I tried to talk to my sister, as I took care of the kids, but she could hear nothing that I said. She is so consumed with wanting her “family” back that she cannot see anything else. It is almost as though she has not examined her face enough to see the bruises that still circle her eyes. The marks on her neck that are only just now beginning to fade. I want to scream at her, “Look in the mirror! Look a little closer! A little longer! Truly see what he did to you!” But it would be no use. She is beyond words at this point. She would not hear me even if she was looking into my eyes as I spoke. She is in denial. I know this. But she is also about to jump into the abyss. With pure abandon. With both feet. And she doesn’t even know it.

It breaks my heart. It has broken me. And my niece and nephew, I want to protect them as well. The first time I held my nephew in my arms, I whispered into his ear that I would protect and take care of him to the best of my ability for the rest of my life. And I did the same with my niece. But from this, I don’t know how to save them. Any of them. “Well baby, mommy is going crazy and no longer knows what way is up. Yes, mommy is crying all the time because she’s sad. Yes, mommy’s face is black and blue, but there is no bandaid that can fix it. No baby, daddy is not going to come home soon.” I do not want to be a promise broken. But I have no idea how to destroy the abyss. It lives within me. I don’t want it to live within them as well. I promised.

I guess it’s about time I talk about some of the stuff in my life. I’m not yet ready to talk about my own health issues that I am currently dealing with. I feel like putting them out in the open would make it more real. And I’m not ready for that. Yet. So I will pick another topic that has been buried inside me for the last two weeks. I feel like it is eating me alive. And maybe, I hope, that getting it out will help me deal with some of the emotions. Quantify them. Break them open into the sunlight.

I have had thoughts of killing myself for more years than I can count. It is a known feeling to me. It is not out of the ordinary and I have come to know the feeling well. But I have never known the feeling of wanting to kill someone else. Now, please, understand I do not mean that in an absolute literal sense. You do not need to call the police or think that you will see me end up on the nightly news. But, hear me out. These emotions are new to me and I am struggling to find the words for them.

I guess I should start from the beginning. In a story that is not truly mine to tell, but I am a character in nonetheless. I am not a central figure, which is why I have never written about it. But it has become a part of my life and something that can, at times, consume me. As my emotions are not always my own. I’m sorry if this is going to end up being a long post. But I feel I need to get all of this out. Maybe in order for anyone who is reading this to truly understand. Maybe so that I can understand as well where these emotions come from.

The story, well, it probably starts when I was a kid. And my sister first entered my life. I was 8 years old and she was 6. Our mothers became best friends and, in turn, we became family. I have been protective of her from the beginning. I have always fiercely defended her. When I was 10, I punched a 12 year old boy because he would not stop making fun of her, even after I asked him to stop. I have never fought for myself. But I have always fought for her. Always.

Now that you understand that I can jump ahead quite a bit. My nephew’s father was a highly immature man and so he left the picture when Austin was only six months old. Which, in all honesty, was for the best. But as a fairly young mother, my sister was terrified of being a single parent. And so the first man that came into her life, she clung to him as if her life depended on it. In the beginning, I had no real issues with Adam. He was good with Austin and seemed to believe in the concept of family that we had. I didn’t have a good feeling when I was around him, but I chalked that up to me just being protective of my sister and not wanting her to settle for less than she deserved. Adam was quite a bit older than her and had a really good job so I went along with it because she seemed to be happy. At first.

Adam and my sister rushed their relationship fairly quickly and, within a year, they were married. There was just something about Adam that none of us liked, but we put up with it because he seemed to be what my sister wanted. Then, slowly, all of the truth about him came tumbling out. Finding its way to the surface for all of us to see. He was an alcoholic. He was addicted to gambling. He was emotionally abusive. He was controlling. He had nothing to his name, even though he had a six figure income. He hated us. All of it came to light. Slowly, then all at once we began to see him for what he truly was.

I can’t even count how many times I have received calls from my sister in the middle of the night. Hearing her cry breaks my heart. Every single time. I have had to go pick up her and the kids in the middle of the night so that they could get a night of peace at my house. I have held her as she cried. I have listened to her pour her heart out. I have seen the fear in her eyes. The words unsaid in what she does tell me. There have been countless threats of her leaving him. Of her wanting to break free. Of her wanting to get out. At one point she actually did leave him for a couple of months. And during that time, she became the person that I remember her being. Because that was the other thing, while she has been with Adam she has become someone different. Submissive. Dependent. For lack of another word, a victim. But when she left him, I saw some of her independence coming back. Her motivation to have a better life. But it was only short lived. She wanted to give her marriage “one more chance”. And so she returned to him. About a month later she got pregnant with my niece. And that’s when things really went downhill.

My sister then felt that she was “stuck” as she now had another child to feed. And she was completely dependent on Adam. And he, in turn, became even more controlling. The situation became even more of a nightmare.

A month ago there was yet another huge fight and we thought that this would finally be it. That my sister would finally leave. But, yet again, she said that she wanted to give it one more chance. She told me that she needed to know that she did everything she could to make her marriage work. That she wanted no regrets. And so all I could do was tell her that I would support her. But in my gut, I had a bad feeling. I get those sometimes. Just really bad feelings. And I never know where they come from. But they’re there. And I only know afterwards why. And I know now.

A week and a half ago, just as I was getting ready for bed, I noticed that I had four missed calls from my sister. Never a good sign. But it is also something I have become used to as she will do that when they get into a fight. So I called her back a couple of times, but she didn’t answer. I started getting really worried. I called one more time. She answered. Through tears she told me that she would need to call me back as she was with the police. My heart started racing. My adrenaline pumping. Fear raging through my mind. Was she ok? Were the kids ok? What the hell was going on?

She finally called me back. Adam finally crossed the line that I was hoping would never be crossed. To be perfectly frank, he beat the shit out of her. Mostly in the face. Punched her at least ten times. And attempted to strangle her. She was attempting to leave. And he finally did it. He finally had nothing more to lose. And he crossed that final line between emotional abuse and physical abuse.

So here’s where my emotions come in. I want to kill him. No, I’m not going to. But I have so much hate towards him that I can’t even think about it because I can’t control the feeling. Like I said at the beginning, I have always protected her. With no regard for myself. But this, this I could never protect her from. Over the last three years I have listened to her. Tried to give her advice. Tried to get her to see the truth of her situation. But as I looked at the bruises on her face, the bruises on her neck, her eyes almost completely swollen shut, none of that mattered. I had to walk into a back room and close the door so she could not see or hear me break down crying. I have known heartbreak before. But nothing like this. To see her so damaged and broken, it broke me. I could not stop this. And so the emotions course through me. And when I try and think about them, to break them down into their components, I find that I can’t. There is just too much. I have never known anger like this. I am not naturally an angry person. But this, this is something else entirely. I know anyone would have trouble if they were faced with this. But me, I can’t control the emotions. The rage. The hate. The pain. The sadness. It’s all a mess inside. And nothing about this is ordinary.

I watched a woman kill herself and I continue to have flashbacks of it. I haven’t been able to sleep. Because everytime I close my eyes I see her looking at me. She’s haunting me. And telling me that I am just like her.

A friendship that I once thought was so “different”, is currently crashing down around me. And I don’t know if the pieces can ever fit back together.

The girl that set me up to fall for her, did not follow through with catching me. Words seem to have been just that, words. I don’t even know how to put into words what is currently going on with that situation. Except that I fell and am now just lost and confused. With no light at the end of the tunnel. Nor do I know how long the tunnel is.

My sister has cancer. She may also lose everything she has today as her husband is most likely going to lose his job. And he is the sole provider in their family. My nephew and niece, who are the complete center of my world, may not have a home when the sun goes down tonight.

The waves continue to crash around me. Getting bigger and stronger. Pushing me down with each progression. As I struggle just to get up from my knees. And all I want to do is just breathe.

Well, here’s the broken part of the BPD. Here’s the ugliness. I try and hide it from everyone in my life. Even from you. But, here it is. Maybe it’s time I bring a little more truth into this blog. And the truth is, I don’t want to be here anymore. It hurts too much to be here. I live my life for everyone else. I hide so much of myself from the world because I don’t want them to know what truly lives inside of me. I protect my loved ones because I don’t want them to know the truth. I want to protect them from all of this ugliness. I never want them to know this. But here it is. I can go from being completely fine to being shattered in pieces in five minutes. Read all you want about BPD. Every article you can find. Nothing can explain what this feels like. This constant ache inside that nothing can ever feel. Feeling so many emotions that you feel like you’re basically going to jump out of your skin because you can’t handle it. No words on a piece of paper can ever come close to explaining what it feels like to want to die because you can no longer handle the hurt inside. I fight. Every single fucking day I fight. But for what? Just to make it through the day? Just to wake up so I can do it all over again? Do you even know what that feels like? I am an internal borderline. Some call it a “quiet borderline”. Whatever you wanna call it, I am more broken inside then I will ever be able to put into words. I live for other people. I don’t know how to live for myself. But I live for them. For their happiness. But in an instant that can change. I think they don’t care. Don’t text me back and I think you hate me. Don’t talk to me as much as you normally do, I think you no longer love me. That’s the fucking reality. But i never say it. I keep all this shit inside. Because I know it’s exactly that, shit. It’s my own mind, my own emotions betraying me. And I feel them all. Over and over and over. There’s no end to them. Never. So I want to protect the people I care about. I want to shade them from all of this darkness. They would be so much better off without me. That’s my reality. The people I love the most in this world, I want them to be free of me. Because this, this is a fucking ugly reality. And no one should have to live through it.

For several years now I have searched for answers as to why I feel the way that I do. I know that a lot of what goes through my head or the emotions that course through me are out of my biological control. But I still try to rationalize to myself. I want to understand, to truly understand, what has made me this way. Blame enough can go to my mom, both from a nature and a nurture standpoint. While I love her with my whole heart, I do understand the damage that both her genetics and her bipolar disorder have done to me. But there are also other answers that I seek.

I seem to get stuck on the idea of “family”. Stuck on what that concept is supposed to mean and what it means to me. I am somewhat obsessed with it. Maybe it is because I have never really known what family means besides what I have been given by my parents. To clarify, that is by my blood relatives. I have family in the sense that I have people who have become my “family” through longstanding friendships and the support they have provided to me over the years. I am lucky to have them in my life. I have so much more than most. But still, that concept of true family alludes me. The people who were supposed to care about me from the time I was born, never have. Or at least they haven’t in the sense that they have never fought to be an active part of my life.

My dad maintains a relationship with his older sister, but I have had no contact with her since I was in my teens. I can barely remember what she looks like. My dad’s brother died when I was a sophomore in high school. His sons, my first cousins, are both in their late 40s. My dad has a very strong bond with one of them, his name is Scott. My dad talks to him just about every week. When I moved to Arizona after graduating college I started working at Scott’s law firm. We struggled to build a relationship when there had never been one for the first 18 years of my life. We failed. Or rather, he failed in his attempt to connect to me. Perhaps it was doomed from the start. He is of an age where he can be my father, not so much a friend. And I am also partly to blame because at the time I was struggling to define my own identity as a gay person (I don’t like the term lesbian, not sure why). In one conversation with him he told me that I would never get far in the corporate world because of how I looked; the fact that I had short hair and wore guy’s clothes. I attempted to explain that I do not dress to try and look like a guy, I just dress how I’m comfortable. He met that with a blank stare and just threw his hands up in the air. I put in my two week notice the next day and have not talked to him since. It was clear that he could never, for personal reasons, support my lifestyle. And I would never force him to.

The rest of that side of my family are strangers to me. Just names on a piece of paper that evoke no emotion when I think of them. Perhaps my relationships with my dad’s side of the family were all doomed from the start. My first cousins are all at least 10-20 years older than me and so even when I was little we had no reference point on which we could connect. Their children, my second cousins, are closer to my age, but most were just babies or not even a thought in my cousin’s minds yet when my parents and I moved out of Los Angeles. We never spent holidays together. There were no celebrations over anyone’s good news. It is not that we have bad relationships. It is more that there was never a relationship to begin with. Which is a strange concept to me. Most people have some sort of opinion about what family means to them. Good or bad, there is some form of a relationship. For me, with that side of my family, there is nothing. There has always been nothing. And I am not completely sure why. I struggle with that. When I was little, my aunt and uncle never tried to be a part of my life. Neither did my cousins. When I got to an age where I could make my own decisions, they were so far removed from the picture that there was no foundation on which to even try and build a relationship. They are strangers to me. The pictures I have in my mind of each and every one of them are more from actual pictures that I saw of them then from real memories.

Now my mom’s side of the family, that is where the majority of my childhood memories lie. Besides my parents, my grandma was the closest family member to me. And that was from birth. Seriously. My mom was forced to remain in intensive care for two weeks after I was born. It was my grandma and dad who took care of me during that time period. I was not only the youngest grandchild, but also the only girl, so to say that my grandma spoiled me would be an understatement. My uncle was removed from the equation when I was growing up because he was heavily into drugs and in and out of prison. But I grew up with not only a grandmother who doted over me, but also with two aunts, an uncle (by marriage), and five cousins. We were close. Two of my cousins were like brothers to me. I did everything with them. One of them was only six weeks older than me, his name was James, and so the first seven years of my life I grew up with him. Almost every memory includes him. And almost every picture of me includes him as well.

Then my parents and I moved to Nevada and the whole dynamic changed. It shifted. We still would spend holidays together, but we all built lives of our own. One of my oldest cousins told me during one visit that he would protect me for the rest of my life, he was a big brother in ever sense of the word. As more years went by, we grew further apart. But while I busied my life with school and sports, my cousins struggled to remain relevant in an environment that grew rife with gangs, drugs and guns. To my knowledge none of them ever joined a gang, but they learned their lessons from the streets of LA, where I learned my lessons from books. Two completely separate worlds. But yet they remained, at least in my mind, the closest thing to me. James actually moved in with my parents and I during my senior year of high school. He had already dropped out of school two years previously, but I helped him obtain his GED. He lived with us for almost a year. I got back the “brother” that I had known from my childhood. And I cherished our relationship more than any other in my life. Then he moved back to LA, had a child, and struggled more than ever to find a clear direction for his life. We remained in contact, but once again our lives were in two separate worlds. Then two years ago, everything changed forever.

My mom is the oldest of her siblings. She has always had a tumultuous relationship with her two sisters, but there was at the heart of it, a relationship there. Even if they argued or had differing opinions, they talked almost every day. My uncle had found his way back into the family and had moved in with my grandmother a year previously after the death of his wife. He was “changed”. However, I think it was more that he had relied on his wife for so long for financial support that he was too old to learn a trade and become self-sufficient. He was too old to live on the streets and sell drugs. But that’s just my opinion. Either way, he was the one to find my grandma’s body that day. From that point on, everything I had ever known about family from these people was altered.

And it was all attributed to a letter that my grandmother had written nearly 14 years before. In it was her “will”. She had been talking about writing a new will and what she wanted done with her estate and even had stated several months before her death that she had written it all down in a new “will”. But it was never found. All that was found was this letter, handwritten by my grandmother in 1993. It was a rambling mess that was hard to understand. But the gist of it was that she wanted her estate split between two of my cousins, myself, my two aunts, and my mom. Nothing about my three other cousins or uncle. In one sentence of the letter she stated that she wanted the “majority” of the estate to be given to my two oldest cousins. And in that sentence lie the weapon that would destroy our family forever. My aunt and cousins clung to that sentence. The bulk of the estate was to go to my two cousins, with the rest divided between my mom, me, and my two aunts. Everyone that had spoken to my grandmother in those months before her death knew exactly what she wanted done with her estate and it was not this. But no, my aunt said, it stated it perfectly in the letter. The letter. The letter. The letter. That is all we heard. We are now in the midst of a legal battle. Not over millions of dollars, but over a $100k estate. My aunt has stated multiple times that after the situation is done, she no longer wants any contact from me, my mom or my other aunt. At the beginning of this I reached out to one of my cousins and asked him his take on everything. I wanted the situation to be discussed between our generation, I already knew where my aunts and mother stood. I wanted us to be able to discuss things as the close family that we once were. He accused me of starting drama and trying to twist his words so that I had something against him when it came time for court. Mind you, he is 13 years older than me and should be perfectly able to handle an adult conversation about serious matters. I told him that I wanted nothing to do with it, I wanted to follow what I knew my grandmother had wanted, and that meant nothing going to my cousins and I; the estate was to be split between my grandmother’s four children. He said that I had no right to come after him as I did and he would fight for what he believed was his. He portrayed nothing but hatred for me. That moment broke me. I realized the battle lines that had been drawn and that I had no more family to speak of. My aunt and cousins destroyed what remaining relationships we had over such a small amount of money that would never truly pay for anything of worth. The concept of family was tossed into the fire as greed consumed these people that I no longer knew. Mind you, that aunt was my godmother. The one who was supposed to play a part in my life, to nurture me, guide me, lead by example and show me the true meaning of life. She cast me aside without a second thought. They all did. For nothing. Everything I believed that my family was, was just a lie. An unstable link that was destroyed at the first inkling of a payday for my aunt and cousins. Maybe somewhere down the line I’ll reform a relationship with my cousins. But deep in my gut, I know that that’s a lie. This is too big. Too deep to just be ignored and forgotten. The relationship with me was worth less than the ink it took to file the lawsuit.

And so, at the end of all this, I struggle to define what family truly means. I feel abandoned. Tossed aside. I have no siblings to fall back on. I have family that is that only by title alone. I understand that family does not necessarily mean blood. I have a “sister” who has been the closest thing I’ve had to true family in recent years and gave me a godson and “nephew” that I could be proud of. I have “cousins” and “aunts” that have always supported me. I love them. And know that in them I can always find solace. But still. The thoughts of family that never was haunt me. The memories of what family could have been fight their way to the surface of my mind. I can’t help but feel that I am always abandoned. Left. That I am not worth the time. Or the trouble it takes to maintain a relationship with me. Because if I couldn’t be worth it to these people who were supposed to love me from the first moment of my life, how could I be worth anything to anyone else. On one side I have family that barely knows my name. I do not exist to them. On the other side I have family that disregarded any relationship I had with them in their pursuit for a minimal amount of money.

I have amazing parents. I am blessed in so many ways. But yet I cling so tightly to what I want “family” to mean because I know how easily people can cast you aside. I mourn for people who never even knew me. Who never gave me a chance to truly know them. It kills me. It eats me up inside. All I want is just to matter. To someone. Anyone. I want people that will be there no matter what. Who have known me my entire life, have known all of my mistakes or poor decisions and love me anyway. I know families like that exist. They surround me. So how come I was never worth it?

Amy Kay. Her name always reminds me of Mary Kay, the beauty care company. But no, she is an actual person. She is one of my “core” friends. We have lived hundreds of miles apart for our entire friendship, which spans nine years. But she is that friendship where we don’t have to talk every day or see each other often to know that we share a bond. She is one of the first people I would turn to if I needed something. And I am the same for her. We have gone years without seeing each other, but our friendship has never missed a beat. She has faced many different types of struggles in her life. But instead of defeating her, they have only made her stronger. She has been a model. A choreographer. She dreams of going to law school and is one of the most career oriented people I know. She is also one of the strongest people I have ever known. And her energy inspires me. I could never imagine my life without her.

A couple months ago, Amy was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. For those who don’t know, MS is an autoimmune disease that affects the brain and spinal cord (the central nervous system). So far, the disease has been progressing rather rapidly. She has been diagnosed as Stage Three. This means that the disease has spread to both her brain and spine. She currently has ten lesions on her brain and three in her spine. All of the lesions in her brain are in her frontal lobe. This is the area that controls movement, short-term memory, emotions, etc. She has become permanently blind in her left eye and is beginning to have trouble seeing out of her right. She is having trouble with her coordination and will drop things randomly. Some days when she wakes up, she cannot move her legs and, therefore, cannot walk. She has permanent numbness and tingling on her right side and has lost sensation in her fingertips. This once strong, independent dancer is beginning to become incapacitated. She is only 27 years old.

Yesterday, Amy came into town and so she came over to my house to hang out. On the outside, she looks the same. But when I looked into her eyes, I saw the exhaustion from the many treatments and hospital visits that she has endured in the last couple months. We talked about how scared she is. About how much of an adjustment her life has become. We both cried and held each other. When we first met nine years ago, we both had aspirations to join the FBI. Over the years, our dreams and directions changed. In most recent years she has discussed going to law school and the steps she needed to take to make that happen. Last night, we talked about the odds of her being able to walk in ten years. We also talked about the odds of her becoming completely blind. This was conversation I never imagined having with her while we were both still in our 20s.

I remained as strong as possible because I knew she needed that from me. But inside, it’s killing me. I feel completely helpless. There is no cure for this disease and nothing I can do to make it better. I cannot even offer to be by her side because of the miles between us. I can’t hold her hand through every treatment or stay up with her at night when the medication she is on makes her unbelievably sick. I cannot even tell her that everything is going to be ok, because I don’t know if it will be. And I’m not going to lie to her. No one knows if it will be ok, not even her doctors.

The thought of losing her terrifies me. I have dealt with a lot of loss in my life. But never someone that I am this close too who is my age. The rapid progression of the disease is terrifying. This weekend trip that she took here felt almost as if she was saying goodbye. Just wanting some final memories to store away. One of the texts she sent to me the night before she came over stated that she wanted to “spend as much time with me as possible”. She has never spoken like that before. Where I currently live is her hometown so she still has lots of friends that live here. So previously, if she would make trips here, it would all be preplanned and we would try to meet up if it was possible. If not, that was fine, we would just wait until the next time we would see each other. This trip was different. It was completely spontaneous. And it felt like there was a sense of urgency to see each other and spend time together. At the beginning of the weekend, she went to one of her favorite places with her best friends from high school. It was a place that she told me weeks ago that she wanted to visit before she went blind. She wanted to be able to remember the beauty that the world held just in case she was never able to see it again. That was the only place they went to. Then when I got those cryptic texts from her, my world began to shatter. I began to see her visit in a different light. And it overwhelmed me emotionally.

My grandma visited me and my parents three months before her death. During that visit, I had this overwhelming feeling that this was going to be the last time I saw her. The feeling was irrational as my grandma was very healthy for her age and had actually just had a physical exam that showed she was in great shape. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her. We had also already planned for my grandma to come back to the area six months later. So it wasn’t like I wasn’t going to see her for a while. So the feeling I had, I couldn’t explain it. I remember sitting on the couch with her talking and I just started watching the rise and fall of her chest, thinking “this is the last time I’m going to see her breathe.” The thoughts scared me. And I put it off as just me being paranoid and me being irrationally scared to lose someone, as the BPD tends to make me feel that way a lot, especially about the people that I love and care about the most. I’m absolutely terrified of losing people in my life. Whether it’s from them walking away or from death, either way, I’m always worried about it. Next to my parents, my grandma was the only true “blood” family I had in my life and she meant a lot to me. So I just thought I was worrying about nothing. Three months later, she was gone. It was a freak accident. After that, I couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow I had known something was going to happen. Because, in fact, that’s exactly how I felt during her last visit. I felt like I was saying goodbye to her, even though I did not want to admit that to myself at the time. Well, with this visit with Amy, I began to feel the same way. I would like to think that I am just overreacting. That I was traumatized by what happened with my grandma and I was thinking that this was the same situation when it wasn’t. But no matter what I am telling myself, it still feels the same way.

I dropped Amy off at the airport this morning. I am terrified that that will be the last time I see her face. That will be the last time I am able to tell her that I love her in person. I even watched the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, just like I did with my grandma. I made the most of last night. We had an awesome time just hanging out. She loved my girlfriend and, in turn, my girlfriend got along really well with her. I told her how much she meant to me. And she told me how much I meant to her. If that was our goodbye, there is nothing that has been left unsaid. So I can take comfort in that. But, the truth is, I’m not ready to say goodbye to her. I am so scared. And there is nothing I can do. I know I shouldn’t be concerned yet because she’s still here. Nothing has happened. But I just can’t shake that feeling. Because what if I am right this time too?

I am accomplished on paper. I know this. I have a steady job that I have held for four years. While I struggle with money due to impulsive tendencies to spend, I live a comfortable life. I also own my own home at a pretty young age; which is pretty legit considering the times and what the majority of America is struggling with. I also have a core group of people around me that I know will be there if I need them. They have already proven their loyalty to me time and time again. So if you were to look at my life from the outside, it appears pretty good. Regardless of the BPD, I have made a pretty secure life for myself. I am responsible and self-sufficient, which are characteristics that even those without a mental disorder struggle with. As my psychiatrist terms it, I am “high functioning”. However, this is all because I internalize everything. All the hatred, all the anger, all the emptiness…..it houses itself inside me. And I fight daily to ensure that I do not take that anger out on the people in my life. Instead of hating the world, I hate myself. While I am accomplished, I will never believe that I am worthy. I will never think that I am enough. And even with all the evidence to the contrary, I truly believe the people in my life would be better off without me. I know that I am wrong in this assumption. But it is still something innate in me. I battle thoughts of suicide almost daily. And the scars on my arms are proof of that battle. At my recent therapist appointment I showed her the scars on my arm from my recent suicide attempt and her initial reaction was “Oh my god”. She then said, “You really did mean it didn’t you?” Yes. Yes I did.

But I am still here. And there are a handful of reasons that I can attribute that to. One of them, probably the main reason, is my godson. He is the most amazing thing in my life. And my love for him, I can’t put into words. Part of that is because I want to be for him everything that my godmother was not. I never want him to know these inner demons that I battle. And I want to provide him with the stability that I was never given. The other part of it is because I know that he saved me. From the moment I first held him, on the first day of his life, my world was changed. Shortly after his birth I went on the medication that is responsible for helping to control my emotions (an antipsychotic). And I remain on the medication because of him. His smile heals me. And his existence makes me want to continue to be here. To see him grow up. To be a part of the structure in his life. I know, this is a lot to attribute to a two year old who only recently was able to say my name. But it is the truth. From the first time his eyes opened, he has known who I was. And his love for me is the purest form of love. Because he does not know how to “fake” it. I know that he counts on me and loves me just because I exist. And for him I continue to try. I may mess up. I may lose control temporarily. I may have to battle harder than others because I try harder than most to ensure that the majority of the people in my life do not know I struggle with something as serious as BPD. Which means I battle internally with the emotions that most allow to take them over so that they can allow others to help them. I do a lot on my own. I falter. I cry to myself and “wait out” my surges of emotions on my own. It is harder for me at times. But for his smile, it’s worth it. It is all worth it. He will never know the extent to which he has saved me. And I never want him to know. But I know. I will always know. And that is enough.